Mumbaikars celebrate their love for India, with 'India My Valentine'

Nineteen venues, six cities and three days — celebrating love for our country has never before been expressed in such a unique manner.

At ‘India My Valentine’, a multi-city programme that culminated at the

Sophia Bhabha

Hall in Mumbai on Sunday evening, multiple artistes, along with people from many walks of life, came together to rejoice in their love for India. Organised by actress-activist Swara Bhasker, producer

Aditi Anand

, activist Fahad Ahmad and Mitali Bhasin, actor-musician Saba Azad, Amrit Raj and others, the event that took off on Valentine’s Day, February 14, in Delhi.

The Mumbai chapter saw Naseeruddin Shah, Vishal Bhardwaj, Ratna Pathak Shah, Swanand Kirkire, Rekha Bhardwaj, Tanmay Bhat, Saba Azad, Aamir Aziz, Kaneez Surka, Poojan Sahil, Raj Shekhar and Sumukhi Suresh, among others, celebrate India with a cultural evening of music, poetry, stand-up acts and more.

Talking about the event Swara said in jest, “I really do not deserve the applause for this programme. Yeh koi desh bhakti nahi tha. Main single hoon and main nahi chahti thi ki mera Valentine’s Day akele guzre. Toh maine socha ki poore desh ke saath V-Day manate hain.”

On a more serious note, she added, “The idea first struck us around 10 days ago. We didn’t have the resources to put this massive event together, we just had the niyat. We reached out to everyone across the country and in just two days, we had over 70 venues. Every single artiste we approached agreed to perform, except the ones who weren’t in the country. And they did it all for free.”

Swara further elaborated, “Over the last few months, we Indians, have been fighting among ourselves about who is the better Indian... saccha Hindustani kaun hai humein se, who is the better patriot… Actually, we were all fighting for India and this just means that we all love our country a lot. It’s just that some people express it very differently. Unke abhiwyakti ke tarike thoda ajeeb hain... shayad woh bhi India se pyaar kartein hain.”

Every artiste spoke about his or her love for the country. Before beginning his stage performance, Vishal Bhardwaj said, “Mumbai hamari mehbooba hai and Hindustaan mera mehboob hai. Usse chodke hum nahi reh sakte hain. Ek gaana hai jo yeh express karta hai, ‘Pehli Baar Mohabbat Ki Hai’.” He later dedicated a song to Naseeruddin Shah, saying, “Naseer bhai ke liye yeh gaana, ‘Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji’” and culminated his performance with, ‘Aaja Aaja Dil Nichode’.